There has always been, for me, this other world, this second world to fall back on--a more reliable world in so far as it does not hide that its premise is illusion.

There has always been, for me, this other world, this second world to fall back on--a more reliable world in so far as it does not hide that its premise is illusion.

Realism; fatalism; phlegm. To live in the Fens is to receive strong doses of reality. The great flat monotony of reality; the wide empty space of reality. Melancholia and self-murder are not unknown in the Fens. Heavy drinking, madness and sudden acts of violence are not uncommon. How do you surmount reality, children? How do you acquire, in a flat country, the tonic of elevated feelings?

Happiness quells thought. And work quells thought.

People die when curiosity goes.

Today's news, which may be yesterday's anyway, will be eclipsed tomorrow.

I do my thinking while I walk. It just loosens up the mind in the way that you don't get when you are sitting at a desk.